Treyarch’s futuristic Black Ops sequel leaked for Nov. 13 release

Leaked screens show quad-copter drones, mech-like tanks.

Activision seemed all set to officially reveal the first details about the inevitable sequel to 2010's Call of Duty: Black Ops in a commercial message during tonight's NBA playoffs. An itchy-trigger finger from the publisher's Web department seems to have stolen some of that thunder, though, as the game's UK teaser site has launched to reveal a November 13 launch date for the game.

Though the game's first official trailer is still hidden behind YouTube privacy settings, the teaser site does reveal that the new title will "propel players into a near future, 21st Century Cold War, where technology and weapons have converged to create a new generation of warfare." A Joystiq tipster also apparently did some light flie-system hacking to unearth some screenshots of the game, showing off gun-mounted quad-copter drones and some sort of camouflaged walking tank fighting in front of smoke-blackened, wrecked cityscapes.

Developer Treyarch will once again be taking the reins for Black Ops 2, after Sledgehammer Games took the lead in developing last year's Modern Warfare 3. The Treyarch-developed Black Ops immediately became one of the best-selling games of all time when it launched in November 2010, selling 8.4 million copies in the US a single month before going on to sell over 25 million copies worldwide.

Black Ops 2's November 13 launch puts it one week after the launch of Microsoft's Halo 4, and well past a slew of anticipated holiday season releases currently set for September and October.

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in Pittsburgh, PA.